


Affogato

by tzigane, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Series: Collations [8]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Hannibal (TV)
Genre: First Dates, M/M, Porn With Plot, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 20:36:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16312274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: "Huh. If I had known you were that close, I'd have been demanding the location of your coffee shop." Yeah, but he was grinning, and he leaned in just enough to lightly nudge Will's shoulder. It made one of his students giggle, but they also seemed to get the hint and went their way.He stopped and locked the door behind himself, grinning as he caught Greg's eyes briefly. "I can take you there, if you'll disclose the location of your pastry place.""Oh, gosh. I don't know." That drawl was teasing. "That's a secret I usually reserve for the morning after. Not that I have a lot of them," he hurried to assure. "But I might like to. Sometime. Eventually.""Mmm, I've got to warn you, I'm pretty... Baggage laden. If you want to keep this just friendly, I completely understand." He fished his keys out of his pocket, watching Greg thoughtfully.





	Affogato

It had been years since Will had gone on a date. He wasn't sure where to go or what to do or... he had no idea, honestly. His class probably thought he had lost his mind because he spent more of his lecture worrying about what came afterwards than on what he was doing. It was the worst class he could lose his focus on, stumbling over slideshows of death and dismemberment, but he knew the stories, knew the facts, knew the reality behind the media version and what he could share to impart a little fear, a little knowledge in his trainees.

He was never going to remember exactly what went on, but he was pretty sure that he would always remember looking up at nine thirty and realizing that Greg was sitting in the back of his classroom paying attention. He hoped, at nine forty, that it had been worth it for Greg, that he hadn't made a fool of himself because he still had a horrible habit of running on autopilot, because he knew the cases so well, so intimately, familiar old walks down familiar old paths, but never his own bad cases. Never the ones that felt like old festered wounds, knotted up scars.

Never those.

By the time his students started to filter out of the room, Greg got up and made his way down to the lecture room floor. He had a gorgeous smile, and he looked fantastic. It made him feel a little like he was underdressed or maybe overdressed, he wasn't sure which. "Hi."

Dressed in someone's dead grandfather's clothes, possibly. "Hi. I hope that wasn't boring for you." Which sounded like he was fishing for compliments, so he added, "Given that you're probably up to date on this stuff."

That grin kind of made his knees weak. "I'm pretty sure that class is always more interesting when you're teaching it." Flirting. It was actually a great deal of fun.

He was hurrying along in the packing up and shoving bits of gear into a bag part of things. "You should see my first day powerpoint. It's the words 'Do not ask the professor about his old cases', on a field of slowly spinning smiley faces. I leave it up for the full two and a half hours. Works like a charm."

"Has to be the smiley faces," Greg mused. "Two and a half hours of spinning smiley faces? I'd be more creeped out than at the crime scene photos."

"It's very effective," Will grinned, "even if the dean thinks it's mildly childish. Given that half my students can't legally drink... Gotta use the language that works." He focused on Greg, on his face, his eyes. Brown eyes, warm, really warm brown eyes, made eye contact and didn't feel his soul want to die. 

"You know, I was sixteen when I started at U.C. Berkeley. Four years of being the designated driver changes the way you look at drinking. I still haven't figured out what that one guy meant about screwing the chicken at Shoney's," Greg offered.

"There's a chicken at Shoney's?" He shouldered his bag, checking that the room was empty of students. There were still a couple of chatters lingering near the door.

"You've got me. I've never really understood what that was all about, but I've gotta admit the guys I went to get were pretty much stone drunk," Greg confessed. "So. I promised you pastries, yeah?"

"And I keep inflicting coffee on you," Will agreed, pushing away from his desk. If Catherine had come to harass him, did that mean it was general knowledge that he was coming to work at the lab? Easy to assume.

"Hey, I love coffee. It's clearly a vital necessity of life. If I could get a caffeine pic line, I would, but I'd keep drinking coffee for the taste. Especially the coffee you bring. Seriously, I'm going to have to start making the trek across town just for your coffee shop."

He caught himself smiling a little as he started to walk away from his desk, hoping that he'd taken that as the move out of the theatre in the round lecture hall signal. "So what part of Vegas do you live in?"

Greg shrugged, an easy enough gesture. "I've got an apartment out near Henderson. Nice enough neighborhood, safe at night. I wasn't sure I wanted to buy, so..." He grinned. "Plus, you can just call somebody else when the pipes go. I'm not what you'd call a mechanic."

"I'm over by Madeira Canyon Park, which means I get my hands dirty with the plumbing. More often than I enjoy." They fell into step as they walked, and he made a herding gesture to his two lingering students.

"Huh. If I had known you were that close, I'd have been demanding the location of your coffee shop." Yeah, but he was grinning, and he leaned in just enough to lightly nudge Will's shoulder. It made one of his students giggle, but they also seemed to get the hint and went their way.

He stopped and locked the door behind himself, grinning as he caught Greg's eyes briefly. "I can take you there, if you'll disclose the location of your pastry place."

"Oh, gosh. I don't know." That drawl was teasing. "That's a secret I usually reserve for the morning after. Not that I have a lot of them," he hurried to assure. "But I might like to. Sometime. Eventually."

"Mmm, I've got to warn you, I'm pretty... Baggage laden. If you want to keep this just friendly, I completely understand." He fished his keys out of his pocket, watching Greg thoughtfully.

That look was direct, completely honest, and Greg didn't stop smiling. "Yeah. I know. Or at least, I've got a fair idea." He tilted his head. "You're kind of famous. Or maybe infamous, and people talk. I like you. The other stuff doesn't matter."

"Okay. Okay. I won't mention it again." He made half a gesture of surrender, but it was easier to smile when he looked sideways again at Greg. "So, I can drive, or...?

The flirting was fun. He just.. no one had in a very long time. "I took a cab over just so we wouldn't have two vehicles. I don't mind taking one home if that's okay."

He smiled, tossed his keys in his hand. "I like driving. A long as you don't mind being in a little SUV that's full of dog hair."

"Dog hair? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'll live. My great-auntie Vilja has these stinky old dachshunds named Sven and Svana. Short-hairs, but sitting down anywhere in the house is kind of risky," Greg confessed as they slipped out of the building. "They shed. A lot. And Svana's a little incontinent sometimes. Oh, and they try to eat strangers, but hey."

"I have three. One's actually a dachshund.... thing. Part terrier. They're gentle, but sort of from jumpy backgrounds." He let his eyes drift, the walkway, the street, Greg again. It was safe out for the moment, nothing dangerous. He would have known. He would have.

"Yeah. My folks always went to the local shelters when we were looking for a new cat. I'm pretty sure Auntie Vilja picked up Sven and Svana there. It explains the snippy biting, anyway."

"At one point, I lived on this deep country road. People used to ditch dogs out there, and there was the odd run away that decided to keep chasing rabbits. There always seemed to be a stray dog that needed fostering for a while." And then there were the ones that stuck. Forever, or close enough.

The beep of the SUV unlocking to the remote sounded, the lights flashed, and Greg moved towards it, opening the passenger side door. "I've never understood that. Throwing out animals, I mean."

"It's like people assume that tossing a domesticated animal into the wild is a good idea. I used to have nightmares about coyotes getting them." He slid in the driver's side, glad that at least it didn't smell like dogs.

Yeah, that. That face. He was pretty sure that was the expression he got every time he considered it. "So... how many dogs have you had all at once?"

He gave a laugh and pulled an expression that he knew was embarrassed. "Oh. Oh, uh. Seven. I had a little pack, and they were probably the driving force for a while there that kept me putting one foot in front of another for a while, and I know, it sounds like dog hoarding. It probably was, actually, but I found them all homes, and my favorite, Winston, he's with my ex-girlfriend's son. They took to each other and... I left him nightmares, probably years of therapy, and an old dog."

Greg smiled at him, and that was... yeah. That was so fantastic. "The thing about kids is that they're pretty resilient. Rumor has it. My mom wouldn't let me do anything even remotely dangerous when I was a kid, so I had to sneak out to learn to skate and surf. She'd take me to the E.R. For nosebleeds, which is kind of crazy, but... Even so. Kids bounce back."

"You seem like you bounced back. Surfing, huh? Pretty sure we don't have anything resembling waves out in Vegas." He wanted to know how Greg found his fun in town, he wanted to know more about Greg. The normal way, without pulling it out of motions and breaths and thought.

"Surfing," Greg told him. "Ninety percent of the attraction was probably the fact that it would give my mom a heart attack. I think that's usually how it goes when you're thirteen, right?"

"I wouldn't know." He tried not to make it a question, but it was one of those things he was bad at. "There was, essentially, nothing I could do that would shock my father. His punishment and reward for anything was to either take me fishing or make me help him repair boat motors. I could have strung empty beer cans and bongs from the ceiling like Christmas lights, and he would have nodded, put his hands on his hips, and declared we were going fishing on the weekend." It had been oddly soothing for an extremely anxious psyche, that complete non-reaction, but his father was long dead and he'd little capacity at the time to share his appreciation of that staidness.

Greg's laugh wasn't shocked or... insulting, maybe that was the word he was looking for, what he had come to expect when he said things like that. "Beer cans and bongs. Yeah, my mom would have cows if she knew I'd ever even seen one outside of television."

"You have, though, right?" Will joked as he pulled up to a red light. It was pretty easy to get back to his coffee shop from where they were just then.

The innocent face that Greg pulled was great. "Me? Nah. Not me." Then he grinned, unrepentant. "I went to college. In California. Some things, it's just better if your mom never comes to realize."

"Probably." He tried to imagine that, but then he remembered Molly finding Josh's stash of Victoria's Secret catalogues, and... Yeah, that had been funny. For him, not for Molly or Josh. "What does she think of lab work?"

"She thinks it's safe." Greg's mouth twitched. "Maybe she's even right about that. It's not like the lab's likely to blow up or anything."

"Safe isn't the same as meaningful. Occasionally, the two are pretty non-exclusive." And no, the lab wasn't likely to blow up, which had to be a relief. Sort of.

Broad shoulders shrugged. It makes her feel better. Plus, the money is kind of awesome. Can't deny that." Yeah, but there was something there, something that said money wasn't that much of a consideration in Greg's calculations.

Will gave a hum of agreement, letting that knowing settle. "But you still want to get out in the field."

For a long moment, Greg seemed to think about it. "Well. Yeah. I like knowing things, and I'm pretty much the master of my domain. I mean, there are updates, continuing education, but..."

But.

"Don't let me discourage you. I just... Have a knee jerk reaction to the field. Which is stupid, given that I'm looking to get back to it myself."

Ahh, that glance said interesting things. "Rumor has it you might be going to work at the lab. A little."

"Rumor is right. Part time. Brass mentioned they could use the extra hands, so..." He'd remained up on his certifications. Maybe he'd even had some plan in the back of his head, unknown and unknowable, or maybe just ignored, to do this. He had no idea, and he had to wonder if he wasn't completely insane to be doing it. It had never ended well.

He turned on his left blinker and made the turn before Greg said anything. "Well. If you feel like you need a quiet place, I'll turn down the music when you come to visit me."

"I... probably will need a quiet place at some point. But it's just two days a week." Will waved one hand from side to side as he eyed the road carefully. "I promise not to hide under your desk."

"Hmmm. There are so many ways to answer that," Greg mused. "I'll try to retain some kind of couth, though. Oh, hey. The patisserie I was telling you about is down that street there. They're not open tonight, but..." He grinned. "I went by before I came to the university, so there's a box at my place with our names on it."

"We can get coffee and then head your way, then?" He grinned a little, because that sort of solved the problem of the dogs, didn't it? Better not to do that his first date.

"Sounds like a plan." A good one, and Greg gave him directions to his apartment. It wasn't that far from Will's place, which was kind of fantastic.

"You're surprisingly close, actually. I'm sad you hadn't found the coffee shop yet." He tucked it away on his mind, and shifted in the seat as he drove. "The coffee shop's open to midnight every night but Monday and Tuesday. I suspect they've done market research to realize no one's that desperate for late night coffee until Wednesdays."

"I'm that desperate for late night coffee every night. Have you actually tried to drink the swill they keep at the office normally?" Yeah, which was why he sympathized with the face that Greg was making. "It's like they've burned the beans and then added some kind of acid. And left it on the plate for two days before offering it to anybody."

"The coffee mess in Quantico was a horror show. There were enough scientists and researchers and cops that everyone had their own solution to coffee that they inflicted on the same bank of machines. So it was like roulette. Am I drinking coffee made by someone who thinks sixteen scoops of Maxwell House French Roast is a good idea for an eight cup pot, or someone who actually knows what they're doing? Surprise!"

One hell of a nasty surprise, on occasion, but it earned him a laugh, and then Greg waved his arms, caught his attention and showed him where to turn. It was a nice enough complex, crappy palm trees and a variety of areas built for something like shade, a pretty fair playground. "My neighbors are kind of nosy, but they're nice. Crazy, maybe, but nice."

"Crazy funny, or crazy pull the shades and don't look?" Both were funny, but Will knew he wasn't supposed to think that.

"Sometimes both. I mean, Darius's mom comes to visit and sits on the steps in curlers trying to calm down his aunts because some guy named Booger has been drag-racing up the lane and nearly hit the cows."

Will caught himself grinning. "Oh, they're from the south. I miss the south sometimes, even if New Orleans is its own separate cultural phenomenon. Booger would be named Boo, and it might be goats instead of cows, and I'm not sure about the drag racing. You need less winding stretches to get it right."

"Mississippi, I think. Oh, yeah, that's the one. There's even a spot open next to my car." Hard to miss, since there was an ancient Volvo on the left side of the empty spot, and a new Trans Am in a purely violent shade of green to the left of that one.

"Jetta, or the Volvo?" Either one fit, but the Jetta looked a little more cared for, and that seemed right to Will, that Greg would at least try to keep his old car up to snuff. Will coasted into the parking spot, and took a minute to straighten the tires.

"Sam drives the Volvo. He swears it's because it's a tank and it can take anything Darius's crazy father can throw at it. Apparently, Tennessee Williams isn't just a play," he shrugged. "Come on. I'm upstairs."

It was hard not to smile as he popped the door open, and then locked the SUV with a double click on his keyfob once Greg was out as well. "Come on. You can't tell me your family never had a moment that made you realize that reality trumps theatre."

That was a nice laugh, honest, and it made him feel good. "Are you kidding? You should hear some of the stories my Poppa Olaf tells." He pulled a jingling ring of keys from his pocket. "You'll have to forgive the mess."

"Three dogs. Sometimes I come home to find out that they spent the day making a pillow explode feathers everywhere." Something about doors made people stand closer. Will liked the feeling he got standing close to Greg, warm Greg with an easy real laugh.

"Yeah, I used to have this cat who thought he was a dog." The door opened to darkness, and Greg reached inside and flipped on the lights. "He'd chase milk rings like crazy. I had to leave him with my folks when I moved to New York, and he got comfortable with them so now I just have regular visitation rights."

"Ah, yeah, losing custody of pets... sucks, but at least he has a good home?" Will stepped in after Greg, and it was honestly a nice place. Clean, apartment-y -- apartments had a feel to them. They were impersonal, and they only held the imprint of a person for so long.

Still, it didn't look like a frat house, and Greg was moving towards the kitchen, turning on lights as he went. "Yeah, Galahad fell in love with my dad. He sleeps on his pillow every night, cries at the door when he leaves."

"Your cat has a dependent personality," Will chuckled. he closed the door behind himself, and took a minute to work out how the lock worked. "Mal does that. The other two are a lot less clingy."

By the time he made it to the breakfast bar, Greg had pulled a white box with a blue logo on it out of the refrigerator and was turning back towards him. "So, I have a couple of raspberry almond croissants, a couple of pear almond croissants, um... strawberry choux cream, coffee eclair, pain aux raisins, some petit fours..." He looked a little sheepish. "There's. There's another box. I, um. Might have gone a little overboard. And the croissants are amazing."

It was hard not to keep grinning like a loon as he edged in closer. "This is amazing. Are the croissants your favorite?" He understood the importance of sharing food. It was a human bonding ritual. It felt good to share, to show others, and as many bad experiences as he'd had with it, the ritual was still effective.

Greg shrugged and settled on the nearest barstool. It was clear he must not have a lot of company -- the dining room table was shoved in a corner. That or he didn't feed them. "Especially with the almonds. Take your pick."

Will followed suit, snagged himself a barstool. He glanced at the box, and went for one of the raspberry ones. "Smells good."

"Wait until you taste." Yeah, and Greg shifted so that his knee brushed against Will's thigh, and he leaned in and picked up a petit four.

He let his eyes track Greg's hands. He really had gorgeous, long fingered hands. Dexterous. "When was the last time you had a serious gaming session?" he asked, before taking a bite of his croissant.

That raised-brow expression was interesting. "I still find myself spending hours playing Tetris sometimes. I mean, I know it's old school, but it's like crack."

He wanted... He wanted to lean in and touch his lips, wanted to press his thumb against that sweetness, but for all that it was obviously a first date, and the knee against his leg, taking that first step was hard.

"You can," Greg said finally. "You can. If you want."

It was permission, and he leaned in, thumb touching skin and then he followed it with a kiss, shoving back all of the jumbled up tense thoughts that tried to intrude in the meantime, sliding his hand to settle on Greg's shoulder.

Greg's mouth was warm and soft and sweet with the tang of raspberries, and he gave a faint sound under his breath that made Will want in ways he had almost forgotten. He felt a hand settle against his arm, light, easy, seeking permission.

Context, it was always about context, and this was no different. Will stretched his own fingers, nodded against Greg's mouth and didn't stop kissing him. Contact, comfortable contact always seemed to be too few and far between.

This was more than that; more than just comfortable, Will could tell, could feel the pure banked power of it when Greg curled his arm over Will's shoulder, palm flattening against his shoulder blade. The kiss changed, then, given permission to grow hungry and wanton, and Will loved it.

Will leaned into it, settled into it, pressed to take more as he let himself relax enough to really enjoy it. There was a slide of tongue against his lips, teasing, and then slipping inside and taking, hot and wet and a little desperate, and then Greg whimpered, a hot, delicious sound that went straight to his brain and from there to his cock and oh.

Fuck.

He gasped a little, pulling back and grinning. "You're good with this? I, I'm very good for this."

That wild-eyed expression said more than words. "I've been good with this for days."

Oh, yes.

"We can get back to pastries?" Might even need them to keep up their stamina, and he could remember going and going and enjoying it. Once upon a time, so long ago that it made his spine feel cold until he leaned in to kiss Greg again.

The fact that it was returned was... amazing and wonderful and god, he wanted so much, and he didn't know how to express all of it, even when Greg pulled away from him. His mouth was kiss-bruised, eyes dark, and he licked his lower lip. "Or we can just skip the pastries and you can see my bedroom."

"The full tour," Will agreed, smirking as he took a back step, slipping off the barstool. He let his hand idle down to Greg's ass.

"And we can have pastries for breakfast." God. No refusal, no uncomfortable motion, just Greg, leaning into him, getting closer and then tugging his hand and showing him towards the bedroom.

The problem with his memory was that things overlapped, blended, slid. Like a flip book of similar moments overlaying one another, re-experienced until he leaned in and kissed Greg's neck in the doorway, Greg's fingers sliding under the edge of Will's t-shirt. That touch, the feel of smooth, scarred skin just under the edge of the material, brought him a little more into the present, reality as it was instead of as it once was, and fuck, but he didn't need his mind to consider all of these things.

"Stop thinking," Greg murmured, and his hands came up, one on his shoulder, one threading fingers into Will's curls.

"Oh, that helps." Touching, so much touching, Molly had been good at that, and he let that thought come up and slide away, too, kissing the soft line of Greg's neck up to his jaw. "Hmn."

"Oh, that's..." Greg moaned, dropping his head back and leaving his throat open and vulnerable

"I think you'll make it easy to stop thinking." He was good at sex, at responding to sub, sub vocal signals, muscle twitches, to falling into the moment when it felt good, and Greg's back shivered under his spread palm. There was no question that he was doing something right, something amazingly perfect, when he nipped at the spot just under his ear, because the sound it earned him was heart-stopping. Greg pushed against him, and his dick was hard against Will's thigh, and fuck. Yes.

Just... yes.

Wanting, wanting was unbelievably hot for Will, and he pulled at Greg, fingers sliding down slowly to keep his hands from fumbling as he tried to get Greg naked. He was lovely as is, but naked. Naked was lovely, and so were the sounds Greg was making under his mouth. "I could kiss you all over."

"God." Yeah, Greg's voice was shaking. "We could do that. And then I could return the favor, if you wanted." Or they could continue as they were, and Will could tell that was more along the lines of what he wanted right now.

"Or another time," Will murmured, toeing off his own shoes as if that might help get them both completely undressed. "I need... a magic wand that does away with clothes."

Laughter wasn't always good in the bedroom. In fact, it could be a fucking horror, but Greg's hands were on the button placket of his shirt, shaking as they tugged at the buttons. "God, yes. Then I wouldn't have to worry about sewing buttons back on."

"I'm almost decent at sewing. Years of fly fishing. I once knitted punk rock sweaters for my dogs, so if you need help with sewing buttons..." He wanted another laugh, wanted to keep it passionate and relaxed and easy, liked the way Greg's stomach muscles twitched when Will palmed over skin.

He got what he wanted, and then Greg kissed him again, and it was sweet, and he hadn't realized exactly how much he had missed this; had desperately wanted it, needed it, and then Greg moved, pulled back enough to tug off his own t-shirt and throw it somewhere on the floor that Will couldn't see and didn't give a damn about, either. His own shirt was mostly off, and Greg pushed a little closer to him, skin against skin, all heat and hands and fuck. Fuck, that was so amazing.

"Ohh, god you feel good." He pressed in, hands sliding down hard to clutch firmly at Greg's sides as he kissed him again. They needed to get pants off, to get to the bed, but that was so nice. There were hands between them, tugging at the button of his pants, at the zip, and then Greg's hand slid into his boxer-briefs and molded his cock upright and WIll almost forgot how to breathe.

He was not going to get out of the starting gate too early, he was better at sex than that. But it still took effort not to give up and rut mindlessly against Greg's hand. "Fuck, hold on, let me..."

Warm breath gusted against the line of his jaw, and Greg's tongue followed it. "Let you come? And then you can fuck me until I fall apart."

"Uhm, that's also a way to go, yes..." It was more of an exhale than an agreement, but he liked the suggestion, liked the slow press of tongue against his skin, the way that Greg's hand shaped him, stroked him, made him want to give in and just enjoy every touch, every single caress, and Greg found his ear with his teeth and his tongue, and god, how did he know how much he loved that?

He felt his leg shake, felt the shiver curl deep in his balls as he let his hands drop down to Greg's ass to squeeze. Christ, christ, he felt good, and Will pulled him to try to get them both on the bed.

It created something of a tumble, and that could have been a complete disaster. They both could have fallen and he could have fucked himself up, could have landed with both of them having busted parts that would make the rest of the night unpleasant, but it worked. It got Greg halfway collapsed over him, and he didn't stop touching him, just kept on and on and Will thought maybe he'd explode.

Too much sensation, but not enough. He felt wild with it, pulling at Greg and finally getting his pants down, his own pants down with a squirm.

"Come for me." Murmured against his lips, and Greg didn't stop touching him, full body press as much as he could, and god. Fuck. It was encouragement, it was... "Come for me, Will."

Nothing like he'd expected, nothing like his plan, and it felt good to let a plan fall away, to let control fall away, because Greg was gorgeous and stroking him off, and on top of him and he'd really meant to last longer.

He had.

When he stopped coming apart, he blinked open his eyes to see Greg licking his fingers clean, mouth curled in a self-satisfied smile. "Hi."

"I didn't see that one coming." He had his arms around Greg, liking the blanketing thing. He liked the sticky body to body warm thing, too, and naked. "Hi."

Warm kiss, wet and tasting of salt, and he couldn't remember the last time something had felt like this. Didn't remember a lot of things, but this was... this was fantastic. "You're kind of gorgeous when you hit orgasm. I could stand to see it a lot more often."

He felt his mouth pull up into a smile, half a laugh as he kissed Greg again. Let a hand idle up from his back to his hair, soft and spiky, clingy with a little product. "Sorry, I was a little wound up..." He felt better now, though, looser.

"I noticed." And he took care of it. It made him want... so many things. "We could go back to pastries now. We can come back to bed and you can fuck me stupid when you're ready."

"You're amazing," he blurted, caught himself too late. He shifted, slid his hand, held Greg close for a moment. Not so long he thought it might be smothering.

Scaring Greg off really wasn't in the plan if he could help it. "Modest, too," Greg agreed, leaning in and catching another kiss. "C'mon. You can introduce me to your dogs next date."

"They'll like you." They hadn't eaten Catherine when she's attempted to give him a shovel talk. He felt warmed, deep in his chest, kissing him slowly again. "They tend to catch on quick."

"Mmmm." Maybe he didn't want to get out of bed. Maybe he'd rather just stay right here for the moment. Maybe... "That's good. This, it's all so good."

He kissed the side of Greg's neck, still feeling lazy and heavy. "Going to take a while to get moving."

That seemed to be enough, seemed to say exactly what it should. Greg shifted, moved to the side of him, and Will straightened himself out in the bed. "Then we'll stay here until you're ready."

He was mostly sure he was going to bottle Greg and keep him.


End file.
